Maggie Gallagher has said that Rick
Santorum's opposition to gay marriage is helping his presidential
campaign.

Gallagher, the founder of the National
Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's most vociferous
opponent of gay marriage, discussed Santorum's recent rise in the
polls as it relates to the issue of gay marriage during an Al Jazeera
segment which also included Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Michael
Cole-Schwartz and the Pew Research Center's David Masci.

Masci said that Americans are nearly
divided on the issue.

“It's gone from a clear majority
against same-sex marriage to essentially a divided country on this
issue,” Masci said via satellite.

Cole-Schwartz said that while
opposition to gay nuptials was playing well for GOP candidates during
the primary, it wouldn't during the general election.

“Michael, I just think you're living
in a dream world if you think it's going to hurt a candidate for the
presidency of the United States because he's not for gay marriage,”
Gallagher responded.

“Among all Republican voters [in
Ohio], not just Republican primary voters, Rick Santorum is emerging
as the Republican who voters say cares most about the problems people
like them face. So, I think a lot of this is a false dichotomy
that's media created and media driven. You can stand for traditional
values, including marriage as the union of husband and wife … and
you can take your case to the broad American people.”

“I think that Americans like to see a
guy who is standing up for what he thinks is right. Even if maybe
they don't agree with him. One of the things Rick Santorum is
definitely benefiting from is that people don't think he's poll
tested, focus group tested, that he has core convictions.”